Yuri Worlds
[3] Threshold
It didn’t take more than a few minutes for Franklin to thoroughly convince himself that the weird, fuzzy black thing on the carpet had to have been a fragment from a waking dream.
He had plenty of things like that packed away at the back of his thoughts. They included the recollection of being sprawled out on the couch and looking over at family. Their forms slowly warped and twisted, with his eyes seemingly starkly open. Not into monsters. Rather, it appeared as though his parents were practically desiccated mummies. They stared, with just the faintest sense of accusation. He tried to scream or yell, but just traces of gasping dust and sand escaped his trembling lips. Not a good dream.
The only other one he made any effort to remember was a looping vision repeating over and over of a giant plant erupting from the floor and digging through the ceiling to escape. His mind was saddled with the frustrating responsibility of having to repair this impossible destruction. The relief of waking up to find that no such invasive plants had ripped through the house was wrapped in countless false awakenings. Would he wake up again and discover that he had never gotten out of bed this time too? That would’ve been a convenient resolution and relief. But that didn’t happen.
Instead, he prepared his workspace with the client program and ever so slightly uncomfortable headphones. He logged in at the right time and slowly shuffled through the tickets left on his account. One of them included a supervisor’s nebulous admonishment for not referring a customer to special product sales. Franklin dealt with it as listlessly as possible before pivoting to live calls. He never had much trouble with this. He could turn on whatever other people needed. He could pretend.
“Thank you very much for waiting so patiently. I see your request here on my desktop. Just a little more information will allow me to fast-track your issue. Please have your account information ready, if possible.“
Several clients in a row actually sounded more nervous than he did. Surely, he thought, this job was at the front of the line for those to be replaced by artificial intelligence soon. It could recreate his voice without any human flaws and work much more efficiently. He wasn’t looking forward to upcoming requirements that he wear an EEG band so that the company could scrutinize when he might be slacking. Guy and Dwight both had better jobs.
Dwight worked for the school district and city hall. Some neighbors chuckled and whispered that he was just a janitor, but Franklin never spoke ill of his work for a moment. Dwight put in so many extra hours and cheered up all the kids on every campus he visited with ready jokes, rides on his back, sliced fruit, and attentive care. Guy managed a comic book shop that was owned by a retired film producer. The producer admitted on one occasion that she wanted Guy because of his captivating appeal to a wide variety of customers. Everyone seemed to develop a confused crush on Gee. And he encouraged them with a variety of manly yet cleavage-hinting tops.
Franklin didn’t mind the hours for the work he put in. The problem was the leeching slog of it. Thoughts drained away. Days both crept and flew. He still had plenty of time to deal with other issues, while the pace felt frantically busy and yet soulfully empty. His right eye twitched slightly, and it had nothing to do with work. It wasn’t long before Dwight put on his red and gold uniform for the evening shift. Guy’s stream continued, and Franklin dealt with some complicated fixes. Typical Friday.
And it ended the same as so many before. Sometime after midnight, they tiredly reunited. No monsters in the dark. No reason to fear. Just Saturday slipping in and the uncertain promise of next week.
It was late when Dwight carried over a covered tray to show the others. He rushed the reveal with a swift tug of a small blanket, and some of what was underneath fell over. Figurines.
“One of the teachers actually has a really nice 3D printer at home, and I got her the info. She thought mine was hilarious,” Dwight explained as he picked up and adjusted the figures. Franklin puzzled for a moment before it suddenly snapped in his brain that these figurines were scale representations of their alter egos. They were a plain, pale, unpainted tone, but the features and dimensions were spot on. Misaki had vivid hair tracing her neck. It definitely looked like her bust was significantly bigger in a three-dimensional space than Franklin anticipated. Chika had some hair stylings reminiscent of Misaki, which complemented the sisterly suggestion, along with a playful and mischievous pose, which Franklyn thought suited Gee’s presence well.
Of course, Namiko had massive melons somehow riding high on her chest. The overall sense of confidence with a playful tilt also suited Dwight. Minute details of tiny glasses on her face impressed Franklin. Her fluttering, slit skirt appeared on the verge of an unexpected panty flash. Along with the figures, Dwight also acquired a variety of gorgeous paints. The quality was great, yet it absolutely terrified Franklin to even think of touching these works of art. How could his unsteady hand ever imbue the correct colors? Gee encouraged that when they returned from their vacation, whatever memories they made and whatever familiarity they developed with their girl selves could go into these little things as precious mementos. Franklin found himself enamored with that but still quietly terrified of the certainty that he would somehow mess it up.
Saturday slid away from them quickly as Sunday loomed with heavy certainty. Clothing was taken care of. Franklin’s few but important prescriptions would be fine. Phones and other technology would also go with them. And they had a small stipend, converted into local currency, to acquire any other essentials. They were also allowed to bring along a few books. Franklin resolved to bring a thick tome on folklore and mythology, which contained a large section on Japanese culture. Otherwise, he included some random titles he never got around to. Guy brought readings for his stream books of the month, including one by Haruki Murakami. One request was that they not bring any visual evidence of men, to prevent cultural uncertainty. So, Guy had to acquire copies without author photographs.
Dwight picked out a few superfluous cultural texts, a couple books by Gene Wolfe, along with a massive, complete collection of HP Lovecraft. It had tentacles all across the front.
Sleeping that night was incredibly difficult, even though everyone got to bed early. No combination of covered or uncovered helped Franklin rest easily, and he wasn’t the only one.
Despite Dwight’s calm and cool exterior lately, he looked around his bedroom with a modest lineup of female figures he didn’t usually have a strong attachment to and felt a certain gravity settle. Namiko, stark and colorless, aside from a few sample shades he’d applied in spots, looked back at him as a ghost of the future. He was sure of his choice though. Pretty sure. Relatively sure.
Gee was, at the same time, practically vibrating with excited energy. No position settled his long, curly hair comfortably. His legs refused to rest on the blankets. Curling up left and right only offered moments of ease.
Eventually, however, exhaustion gripped the trio, and they each found sleep awkwardly face-planting into their pillows.
What couldn’t truly be considered morning yet gripped them with the scalding light of the rising sun. Gee often adored the way that sunbeams crested through his window, but even he glowered at the beams breaking through the shades. Dwight managed to rise early and get through several push-ups. They allowed themselves plenty of time, and Franklin used a good portion of it with his breakfast taking the fast track.
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Crossing the monumental threshold of actually getting in the car earned nervous glances between the three of them. Why had they decided to take this sort of vacation, compared to any of the other options available? Guy actually learned about it first through a company he had done a promotion with.
The three of them and most people were aware of the types of vacations that Travel Anywhere offered at launch. More well-known were a series of controversies dealing with the early establishment of travel between realities and universes. Rumors circulated through podcasts and the Internet of a global crisis narrowly averted in the vein of old large hadron collider rumors. Creatures from beyond slipping past the Veil through the holes burrowed out by the company. Prominent public figures replaced by slimy black entities thirsting for death and destruction through the acquisition of horrible weaponry. Mysterious, massive warehouses purchased by the parent company. And so much more.
So, their trip essentially amounted to positive PR. It wasn’t free, but it was quite reduced from similar packages. As such, the available list of destinations was significantly curated. And this one in particular, scientifically labeled MXJ7524, had been prominently celebrated by Guy’s media contact.
Franklin knew the company was well aware of Guy’s average viewership and considered him an influencer in a vein that checked a lot of boxes for their interests. Or, at least, that was the best assumption he could make from the details. Guy felt reticent at first to drag his friends to a strange, all-girl anime world, but Dwight was swiftly gung-ho for the experience, and Franklin found quiet enthusiasm. The biggest problem over the last few weeks was explaining the details of their trip to anyone on the outside without making it sound weird and perverted. At least for Franklin.
For Guy, he used it to both screw with and appease segments of his community, which had different theories about what he might keep closeted. The superposition state he maintained balanced between him as a manly man, a pretty boy, a girly girl, a possible egg in denial, and a clever troll. Neither Dwight nor Franklin really knew which one had the most credence, and Gee liked it that way. Streams weren’t possible from the other side, but Guy packed plenty of recording equipment for making videos and promotions afterward. The bags would meet them at the halfway point.
They wouldn’t be parking at the regular lot but rather one around back with long-term storage in an underground garage. The line to drive in was longer than Franklin was expecting but still short enough that he felt like they were being propelled inexorably forward. Everything was ready, but he still felt he was going to shake to pieces.
Their spot was 47GH. Dwight made absolutely sure that everything was turned off. From there, Franklin anxiously scrutinized the restrooms off to the side. A low-frequency rumble saturated the area. It wasn’t helping. The corridor slanted downward, with at least a dozen other travelers making their way ahead of them. Franklin felt like he was the one who already received the reduced bladder instead of Dwight. The tension was palpable, even though his friends maintained cheerful demeanors. Franklin tried one on, but it felt like tearing a rigid plastic bag.
A large waiting area greeted them, similar to the one above but more like an office crossed with a subway station. They went right to a desk marked VIP Guests. Some more paperwork had to be filled out before they were led to a worker who checked their bags. She had zero sense of humor. Dwight considered packing a floppy, purple dildo for fun, but that definitely fell under the restricted items regulations. The only stuff that she took time to carefully examine were the medications, but Franklin had all the pre-check paperwork ready in his trembling hands.
Soon after that, someone else came to confirm the physical descriptions of their alter egos, or “travel personas“, as the worker termed it. She barreled through the peculiarities of Dwight’s requests, pausing only briefly to allow him to make any last-minute corrections, if he so wished. He did not. She didn’t comment further, and they moved along to the staging area immediately next to departures.
A woman in a white lab coat took their vitals and checked some samples they acquired yesterday against mouth scrapings and urinalyses. Franklin found it weird that she didn’t write anything down following their vitals but suspected that they had an internal system that recorded it, unlike at hospitals. She did comment that Franklin had a slight tachycardia and a marginally elevated blood pressure. He did his best to breathe slowly. She offered him some water and questioned if he needed to take any pills. After quietly doubting himself a few times, Guy confirmed that Franklin had indeed taken everything before they left.
Franklin felt flush and embarrassed as she gave him a little something to drink and ten minutes to calm down. It didn’t help that his body decided that it was time to infuse his crotch with every drop of blood it could move. Elements of the creative process had caused all sorts of reactions in the privacy of his room with his legs crossed. This wasn’t fun though. It was achingly painful. He figured he could squeeze out a few drops but doubted that would help much. However, making sure he was as empty as possible before acquiring a new biology seemed like a good idea.
Waffling between standing and sitting with the rigidness about to blast its way through the cut at the end of the shiveringly frigid toilet seat, Franklin managed to dribble out enough that he felt closer to comfortable. When the lady in the lab coat returned to check on him, she gave a nod and confirmed that he was safe to travel. That was it. They were doing this thing.
She placed them in another line, the final line to leave their world. Just beyond, they caught a hint of the gateway. A small, stepped recess dipped into the cement. Above and bisecting the lowest section, a rounded, gold and blue archway looked exactly like something out of a myriad of sci-fi TV shows from decades ago. Franklin thought it resembled an art installation over some stray section of a skate park. A small group was ahead of them.
Franklin tensed his shoulders and rocked back and forth on his legs, a chill invading his body despite the warmth of the room. The air beyond the arch looked like a dense cloud of fog and smoke clinging as a natural curtain. Whoever stepped through rippled the surface slightly before it settled back into stasis. Someone off to the side operated a computer console and furiously pounded the keys between each group moving forward. When it was finally their turn, it took them a little longer to type something out before they looked over and beckoned them forward.
The threshold was wide enough that they could stand beside each other and step through at the same time. None of them had that action in mind until right then. Holding hands would have been too much, but Gee did give Franklin‘s right hand a little squeeze.
Up close, the gateway felt saturated with charges of ozone. Out of everyone, it was actually Franklin who took the first step, pressing his leg against the unknown. When his head passed, it was like being blind for a millisecond.
Then, everything changed.